Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Speaking Peace to One Another

Today’s sermon text is found in John 20:24-31. John 20:24-31. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

But Thomas, one of the twelve called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said unto them, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them.

Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst. And said, “Peace be unto you.” Then saith he to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said unto him, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus saith unto him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your most holy word. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that indwells us individually and corporately. And we pray now your spirit would take this word and write it upon our hearts. Transform us by it, Lord God, with this great climactic end to John’s gospel. We pray, Father, you would bless us with the knowledge of it and the practical application in our lives. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

We have here what can be said as the formal conclusion to John’s gospel. There’s another chapter that awaits us, and it’s kind of, as is frequent in biblical books, almost an appendix at the end—a very important one, of course—but you can see now how this gospel has moved from wilderness to garden and culminates with this great confession of Thomas, the great confession of John’s gospel, and then brings us into that confession of John by the editor’s statement, saying John’s own statement, saying that these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, imitating, as it were, twinning the statement of the twin, where Thomas’s confession is kind of repeated as being our confession who believe and have not seen. And so this kind of is the great capstone to the gospel. And there’s an appendix we’ll get to, but I want to actually spend a couple of Sundays dealing with this particular text.

What I want to talk about today is speaking peace to one another. I won’t get into great detail on this text. I’ll make some points of reference for what I want to talk about. But really what I’m saying today is really the result of the last couple of sections—or the last couple of narrative structures—here that we’ve been given in chapter 20.

This is Jesus again coming and speaking peace to his disciples. We saw this two weeks ago when Jesus came the day of the resurrection itself, in the evening, to the disciples. He appears in their midst. The doors are locked for fear of the Jews. He appears in their midst and he tells them, “Peace be to you.” So then he tells them “Peace be with you” a second time in that narrative of John’s gospel and commissions them for their path.

And here we have a week later—we have this wonderful fulfillment of the psalm that says that God will indeed speak peace to his people. Here we have eight days later. Now, that’s a way of saying the following Lord’s day, the following Sunday, counting each of those days in the sequence of days. So it’s clear every commentator agrees that what we have here is another Sunday appearance. It’s an eight-day appearance, and it’s specifically said in such a way as to stress eight days.

I mean, it could have chosen a different way to express the day here, but the text wants us to think in terms of the eighth day from the first day of his appearance. So he appears to them on a Sunday. He comes again on the following Sunday, which is the eighth day. And again, what does he say? He speaks peace to his disciples.

There are some differences between this appearance and the last one. The doors are still shut, but now we won’t have the explanatory phrase “for fear of the Jews.” So there seems to be a transition, at least in the perspective of the disciples and the way it’s portrayed to us, as a result of Jesus’s first appearance.

And this appearance—you know, the whole focal point of this appearance is Thomas, who is also called Didymus in the King James, or in the New King James or most modern translations, Thomas who is also called the Twin. Now, that’s what Thomas means—twin. The name literally is translated as twin. You know, I mentioned a couple weeks ago that Irene—somebody named Irene—Irene means peaceable. And so Thomas means twin. So the text goes out of its way with a twin reference to tell us about the twin aspect that is Thomas. So the twin, who is called the twin, wanted to see Jesus.

And this is a text that’s frequently talked about in terms of the doubt of Thomas and saying he was divorcing himself from the disciples. Nothing of that seems, at least to my way of thinking, to be in this text. And I’ll talk more about that in a couple of weeks. But it’s very important, and I’ll stress this more in a couple of weeks, that we do not somehow think that faith is a cerebral event and is based upon a cerebral intellectual comprehension of something that’s not historically and physically rooted.

The disciples were supposed to see Jesus, touch him, feel him. John in his epistle talks about how they’re witnesses to us, those that do not see him physically. But they’re witnesses of what they saw, they heard, and they touched and they felt. You see, so it isn’t bad that the disciples are expecting to see the physical form of Jesus. And in fact, it’s absolutely required as the basis for our faith.

Now, our faith is based upon the transmission of verbal statements. But these transmissions of verbal statements go back to men that saw the facts of the matter in reality in front of them—the resurrected body, not a phantom of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Luke’s gospel, this account of this appearance to the disciples, they’re afraid and he says, “Touch me. Look at the wounds. Touch them. I’m not a phantom.” So he actually invites the disciples to do the physical investigation that Thomas is routinely denigrated for here in our account.

So we have to be careful again, you know, with how we treat biblical characters. But I want to talk today about once more Jesus speaking peace to his people and the implications of this for our life.

We have, as I put in the introductory statement of your outline, God speaks peace to his people here in the new creation on the eighth day, delightfully fulfilling Psalm 85:8. Turn and keep a finger in Psalm 85. If you could turn there, please, and we’ll look at that text.

We’ll be looking primarily at the second half of Psalm 85, and in Psalm 85:8, we have this citation. The psalmist says, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people and to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly.” So, you know, this has a particular setting when the psalm was written, but clearly we can connect this now with the Lord Jesus Christ coming to his people in his resurrection appearances.

And this is what he does. God the Lord will speak peace. He will speak peace to his people and to his saints. And that’s what Jesus is doing here. Now, he’s doing it explicitly according to our text on the eighth day. And while I don’t have time to go to all the recitation of this—there, I have a series of tapes on the Sabbath, six or seven, eight tapes maybe. And on one of them, I talk about the eighth-day Sabbath.

But understand that this transition from the seventh day to what the text tells us is the eighth day—from the last day of the week, Saturday, to the first day of the week, Sunday—is not something that Constantine, you know, dreamed up and decided to impose upon the church. This transition from seventh to eighth day is integrated. It’s an essential part of understanding the recreation of the world that Jesus comes to effect. And so it’s not surprising that in John’s gospel, which focuses on this recreation as we’ve seen over and over again, this eighth-day reference is given as a way to talk about the Lord’s day. It’s the beginning of a whole new creation. It’s the first day of the week, and it’s the eighth day, indicating that history has ratcheted forward into the new creation.

Now, this was prefigured in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, for instance, before the tabernacle and then later the temple could be used, the tabernacle itself had to go through a process of cleansing for seven days. And on the eighth day, sacrifices could be made in it. The altar explicitly had to go through seven days of cleansing. On the eighth day, the altar was ready to have sacrifices laid upon it.

An interesting detail of the sacrificial system is that an animal had to be at least eight days old to qualify as a sacrificial animal. You know, most of them were much older than that, but the text in the Old Testament, the laws tell us, has to be eight days old. So you got an eight-day-old, at least, or older animal on an altar that’s been consecrated for eight days, and a temple that’s been consecrated for eight days. The tabernacle and the priests themselves undergo seven days of cleansing. The eighth day they’re ready to do their work in the new creation. That’s the whole picture—the whole picture of the sacrificial system is that Jesus will move us into the new creation of the eighth day.

And in the Old Testament feast cycle, the same thing is pictured for us. We know that the Sabbath day—feast, at the end of every week the seventh day was the Sabbath day. But then there were certain double Sabbaths as well throughout the cycle. And there are several of these, and enough so that it’s really hard to figure out exactly what that Old Testament calendar looked like. Some people think that the Sabbath was like your birthday—it was actually a different day of the week every year. It’s hard to establish that. The texts don’t give us enough clarity whether it was actually Saturday every year or it moved through.

And the reason it’s confusing is because of these double Sabbaths that occur at certain times. Well, you see, a double Sabbath means you’re going from the seventh-day Sabbath to the eighth-day Sabbath. And again, it’s an Old Testament prefiguring that Jesus would have come to effect a new creation, and we moved into that new creation on the eighth day, the first day of the week, the Lord’s day. The whole Old Testament prefigured this.

I was listening to a radio guy the other day talking about the seventh feast of Leviticus 23. And you know, most of our children, a lot of them at least, know the seven feasts of Leviticus 23, how they track the Old Testament cycle. And the seventh feast, of course, is the Feast of Tabernacles, the great rejoicing feast at the end of the year. But this man was talking about the eighth feasts of Leviticus 23 in the Old Testament system, because the Feast of Tabernacles concluded on the eighth day with one of these double Sabbaths. They concluded with the great day of rejoicing, which was an eighth-day celebration, and this man and others have seen it as actually an eth, almost not even directly linked to the Feast of Tabernacles, but a whole eighth festival on the eighth day—the culmination of the Old Testament calendar.

And so you remember that we saw in John’s gospel, on the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus gets up and declares himself as the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles. And that’s the end of the Feast of Tabernacles. When Jesus does that, when he brings in the eighth day, the new creation, the Old Testament system is put out of joint and everything moves forward.

So the point is here we have a confirmation in the way the appearances of Christ are recorded in the Gospel of John. We have the divine confirmation of what the Old Testament pictured—this transition of the day of special convocative worship from the seventh day to the eighth day, from the end of the week to the first day of the week—and so to move into the new creation, we move into a new Sabbath or Lord’s day, the eighth day, the beginning of the week.

And it’s here on this eighth day that Jesus puts his stamp of approval in John’s gospel. And it’s on that eighth day that Jesus comes to his disciples and speaks peace to them.

Now, we see then later in the history of the church in Acts they meet on the eighth day, or the first day of the week. Then we see in the Revelation, Jesus appears to John on the Lord’s day—that’s when worship is going on. So we have prefigurement, we’ve got Jesus putting his stamp of approval on the day, we have the apostles validating that this is the day of special convocate worship, and then Jesus’s special divine stamp of approval at the book of Revelation in the opening chapter of the book of Revelation.

So the whole thing now is why we worship on Sunday instead of Saturday, and not because of Constantine, but because what the scriptures taught—and the importance and significance of God coming and fulfilling this remarkable verse, speaking peace to his people in the eighth day of the new creation.

And I want to talk today about our speaking peace to one another. But I want to put it in this particular context.

God speaks peace to his people apart from verbal interpersonal communication. I want to talk about verbal personal communication as the way we’re to speak peace to one another. But I don’t want this to be understood in a way that says this is the only way Jesus speaks to you. Okay, we’ve stressed a lot of it in our church this last year. But I want to begin by saying that it’s very important that we don’t, you know, move away from one ditch so far we end up in a different ditch.

God does indeed communicate his peace to his people in nonverbal ways, apart from interpersonal communication. Philippians 4:7 says, “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Peace of God which surpasses all understanding will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

We’re to experience the peace of God apart from hearing somebody else’s voice say peace to us. Now, it’s kind of obvious, but I want to make sure that no one here thinks that I’m negating any of this as I’ll move on in a minute to talk about the importance of our speech to one another.

This is the peace of heart that we have, knowing that our sins have been paid for, knowing that we’re in right relationship with God, knowing that he’s on our side. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But this is a peace that settles upon us. There should be regular times in the lives of our children, in the lives of the adults of this church, when we experience this peace of God that surpasses all understanding when we’re alone, right?

So I’m not denying any of that. It’s very important to see that is true. Colossians also tells us the same thing. In Colossians we read that “let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which you are called in one body and be thankful.” Now Colossians immediately puts it in the context of one body. So it includes a social dimension, but still the Colossians text tells us is a peace of God that should rule in our hearts.

I mean, the point of as much as I’m going to stress interpersonal communication and presence and community in terms of speaking peace and how God speaks peace to us—the fact is that we’re alone most of the time, right? I’m alone most of the time. I may be in the same house or room or I’m working in this office and Isaac is over there, but you know, basically almost most of our lives are kind of separated. That’s not bad. God calls us to do work. He wants us to do things. He wants us to spend time alone that way. And if all we do is equate the peace of God being spoken from other people as the only time we experience peace, we’ve missed it somehow.

These things are synergistic. They work together. Our own relationship individually with Christ, with God through Christ, and our relationship with community. But I want to make sure you understand that I certainly believe and I think it’s very important to recognize that when Jesus comes here and says peace to the disciples, we think in our minds: yes, when I’m in the midst of my work, when I’m struggling, when I’m home all alone, sick, or whatever it is, the peace of God can be mine through Christ.

And Philippians is one of the verses that we should turn to experience that peace. And it tells us some things to do. Think about good things and not bad things. Think about who God really is and what reality is all about, and we come to a state of peace in our hearts even in the midst of troubles or trials. So that’s very important.

But it’s also important to recognize that God speaks peace to his people through the means of the human voice and presence. And we’ve talked about this before, but just briefly, we remember that John in chapter 13 of this gospel, Jesus said in verse 20, “Truly I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me. Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” And what he’s saying is: just like I came to you, now I’m going to send you. This is—the Father sent me, I’m sending you. And if somebody receives you and receives your speech, they’ve received me.

So if Christ is going to speak peace to his people, certainly a very important way that is communicated is when his people speak peace to one another, okay? So God works through human voices and through human presence to speak peace to his people. And that’s what he does directly in our text. Jesus is in a human voice and he’s got human presence. Jesus comes and as he comes, he speaks peace to his people on the eighth day when they’re gathered together.

Jesus comes and speaks peace to them in a human voice and in a human body. And so it’s important that we understand that and that we see the connection to the way God ministers to us through other people’s voices. Speaking peace to us is absolutely critical to really being at peace in the midst of our soul.

It’s interesting that there is here a great benediction placed at the end of this account of Thomas. Then concludes with these two verses where the author says, you know, these are written that you might have life. And then Jesus actually pronounces a benediction before that and says, “You believe cuz you’ve seen. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet believed.” That’s you and I. So Jesus pronounces benediction or blessing to us who have not physically seen the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now John then writes another book called Revelation. And it’s really kind of the other half of his gospel, because in his gospel there’s no discourse about the future as there are in the synoptic gospels. John gives us a whole book about the future called the Book of Revelation. It begins where John’s gospel kind of concludes here. It begins with a benediction. It begins with a blessing, and we read in the opening verses of the Revelation: “Blessed are they that read and blessed are those that hear the words.”

So the benediction now resides on those who believe, but it’s belief through the hearing of the words of the Revelation read aloud in church and driven home by pastors. So again, the blessing is not put in some kind of non way that’s apart from human communication. But in Revelation, the blessing comes to those who physically hear speech—the word read to them. Good to read the Bible. There’s a blessing attached to that. But in Revelation specifically, we’re told that this blessing and benediction that Jesus declares at the end of John’s gospel, at the beginning of the rest of John’s gospel, he says, resides on those who hear a human voice reading the Book of Revelation to them.

So it’s very important that we see the significance of the human voice as mediating God’s peace to his people. We are to speak peace to one another.

And John understood this. He writes about it by way of implication here. Jesus speaks peace to them, commissions the disciples to go out and to remit people’s sins, implying peace. But then John also himself, in his third epistle in verse 14, he says, “I shall certainly see thee. We shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee.” So John immediately applies in his epistles what he’s learned from Jesus—that he’s supposed to speak peace to the body of Christ as Christ’s representative, and he speaks to them, “Peace be unto you.”

It’s interesting that in Psalm 35:20, the wicked doers who devise deceitful matters against people that are quiet in the land are those explicitly that speak not peace. So the wicked people, according to the Psalms, are those that speak not peace to their neighbor. The implication is that you know, it’s not enough to be neutral toward your fellow member of your household or of this church or other Christians. If you’re not speaking peace, then you’re associated with the wicked who are devising evil things.

We have a positive obligation to open our mouths, use our tongues, and the wind—the wonderful, beautiful thing that we suck in wind and it comes out with a means of grace and establishment to each other. We’re to speak peace to one another, okay?

Now, let’s talk about what this peace is.

To speak peace is to assure one another that the sovereign Father’s blessings reside on us. And I’m going to talk more about this Thomas the twin in a couple of weeks. Next week we’ll talk about thanksgiving. But I’m going to explore a little more this idea of Thomas being a twin. It’s significant in the text. It’s doubled up—the reference to it.

But I think that one thing we can see is that if we have this arc in John’s gospel going from wilderness to the garden, that draws us back to the beginning of the Bible, right? Where Adam’s in the garden and Adam goes into the wilderness, and now we’ve gone wilderness back to garden. So there’s a necessary, there’s a proper way to think here: that what Thomas is doing is maybe one twin association with Thomas is with Adam, okay?

One connection is with Adam. And there’s a sense in which we’re all twins in this way. We all have the old man that we’re to put off and the new man. We all have the Adamic nature, which we’re to put off, and to put on the new nature by way of volition and will. So we’re all kind of twins in that way. And Thomas here is sort of the twin of Adam who falls.

Now, Adam’s fall is in response to the temptation of the serpent. And if you’ve been here very long, you’ve heard me say this several times, but it’s worth repeating. Remember that the description of God as he speaks and creates Adam and Eve in the garden is as Father Sovereign, right? Yahweh Elohim, Jehovah, God. Elohim means strong one. Yahweh is the covenant name of God. And because it’s Yahweh, the covenant name of God, he’s their father. They’re his people. They’re his sons.

You see what Yahweh can imply. So as God describes himself in the creation account, he describes himself to Adam and Eve as Father Sovereign. He is sovereign, all powerful. He’s the God to be feared, but he’s the God who is on their side, who loves them and is taking care of them, you see. Father’s hands sometimes faking but embracing. So Father Sovereign.

And the serpent comes and tempts man to disbelieve that God has your well-being in store. Now, he does that explicitly by saying, “Oh, God doesn’t really have your well-being in store. He’s just interested for his own self.” And some of our theologies have gotten all messed up. And that’s what we think God is. We’re not supposed to be selfish, but God is selfish. But God is not selfish. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are continually giving to each other. That’s why we’re not to be selfish. God, the serpent was wrong.

And the serpent addresses God not as Yahweh Elohim, but as Elohim without Yahweh being there—without the fatherly aspect, the covenantal care of God for his people. That’s a temptation to Adam. Adam fell by moving his confession away from believing that God is Yahweh, our covenant Father.

Now, I bring all that up because Thomas’s confession here, “My Lord and my God”—on the outline, I’ve got this for you or the notes that is Kyrie and Theos—the Greek translation that was in use at the time, the Septuagint, for translating this Old Testament term Yahweh Elohim, Father Sovereign.

So Thomas’s confession is the confession that Adam moved away from. You see, Adam moved away from belief in God’s well-being intended for his people. He moved away from the perception of God as Father. And Thomas is restored Adam, right? All humanity restored. And he’s the link to us. And Thomas comes to this confession of Yahweh Father—or Father Sovereign, rather. So he comes back to that.

So we’re speaking peace, and this assures us that the sovereign Father’s blessings really reside upon us. Jesus comes to them and speaks peace to them. He tells them that God is both sovereign and God is their Father as well, their Lord. We should obey him, but he’s going to take care of us. We’re his people.

And so Thomas’s confession matches that statement. Jesus speaks peace, produces peace in Thomas, and Thomas confesses Christ as both Father, so to speak, covenant God, as well as powerful one who must be obeyed.

So speaking peace is to assure one another when we go to each other and speak peace, we’re to assure each other of God’s sovereignty and we’re to assure each other of God’s delight in his people—that God has our well-being in store, because we’re tempted to believe the serpent when bad things happen, when tough times happen, we’re tempted not to believe that God loves us. So to speak peace to each other is to remind each other of the love of God as well as the power and authority of God.

Secondly, to speak peace is to remind each other and to assure each other that salvation is near and that glory is coming.

Remember I told you to leave your finger in Psalm 85. And we turn back to that. Now God will speak peace to his people. And there is some description then that’s given to us as to what that means. Verse 8 says that he’ll speak peace to his people, to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly. And verse 9 gives us some indication of what this peace is: “Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.”

So the speaking peace to people is an assurance on the part of God that salvation is theirs and will continue to build in the context of their lives and that glory is coming. “Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.”

When we speak peace to each other, we’re to remind one another and assure each other that God’s blessings—his salvation from all of our enemies, you know, physical enemies, people, financial difficulties, problems with the world system, whatever enemies we have, our own sin—that God is in the process of saving us from those things. So salvation is coming in the middle of distress, and we should speak peace to one another.

Jesus spoke peace to them: “You’re fearful of the Jews. Peace to you.” In speaking that, he assures them that God’s salvation has come to them. They’re going to be saved from the Jews, literally. And the next time he comes to meet with them, they no longer, at least the text doesn’t tell us, that the doors shut because of fear. Maybe other things are going on. So he assures us by speaking peace of our salvation and that we have glory. That glory is coming. Honor—we all desire to have glory or honor in us. And God says that speaking peace is an assurance that glory is coming.

Then in verse 10 of Psalm 85, we’re told another component of this: “Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.”

To speak peace to one another is to assure each other that his kingdom, God’s kingdom, is coming on earth as it is in heaven. Psalm 85 says that God will speak peace. Jesus speaks peace. Psalm 85 says part of that peace is assurance of salvation and honor. And when we see Christ speaking peace, we can see that he is guaranteeing his people, assuring them that they’re going to be saved. When we speak peace to each other, we should assure each other of God’s salvation.

We should assure each other that we are going to receive glory and honor as history progresses. And as God speaks peace to his people in Psalm 85, we read that truth shall spring out of the earth, righteousness shall look down from heaven. Heaven and earth are meeting up together in some kind of nuptial, so to speak. That means that earth will reflect heaven’s glory.

And so when we speak peace to each other, we’re to remind each other and assure each other that what we pray every Lord’s day is actually coming to pass. We pray that thy kingdom might come on earth as it is in heaven, that it might be manifested, and history will manifest the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re to assure each other with our mouths as we speak peace to each other of these things.

And then Psalm 85 goes on to conclude by saying, “Yes, the Lord will give what is good. Our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him. Shall make his footsteps our pathway.”

To speak peace to one another is to assure each other that blessings are on their way. That we are walking in his footsteps. And see how pregnant that phrase is when we consider the gospel of Christ. We go through struggles and times of trial, but those are the struggles that Jesus went through. He went through suffering that he might be made perfect, that he might go from prison to glory, so to speak, from death to resurrection.

And so we’re walking in the Savior’s steps, so to speak. Speaking peace to one another, reminding each other indeed that blessings are on their way. Corporal physical blessings are described in 85 as coming. That’s what the future brings.

So what I’m trying to say is that we’re supposed to speak peace to each other. What does it mean? Well, it means assuring each other of some basic core doctrines of the faith and doing it with our mouths as well as with our presence. We’re supposed to remind each other of these things. We’re supposed to minister God’s peace to one another with our tongues.

When we go to prayer meeting this afternoon—most of us—this is what we should be doing. You know, we’re going to be sharing concerns, problems, difficulties. God says that Jesus should speak to us peace. And the way Jesus normally speaks to us peace, or at least one significant way, is for other members of the body of Christ to speak peace to us, assuring us of these things.

So secondly, I want us to think about speaking peace.

The assumption that lies behind this speaking peace to one another. Speaking peace assumes that we are on one another’s side. Psalm 124:1 and 2 says that God is on our side. It’s a song of Asense. It says, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side. Let Israel now say, ‘If it had not been the Lord that on our side, when men rose up against us, then we would have been doomed.’” So Psalm 124 tells us that God is on our side.

And we should want to understand that behind this speaking of peace to one another is a self-conscious commitment and awareness and a desire to see ourselves as on each other’s side. Now, it seems kind of obvious, but we have to understand that as we speak to one another in the context of the body of Christ, that we are going to be speaking peace to the people that God says he spoke peace to in Psalm 85.

And what he said in Psalm 85 is that God will speak peace to his people and to his saints, okay? He speaks peace to his people and to his saints. So when we think of each other tonight at prayer meeting, no matter what concerns we may have with this or that direction in our lives, no matter what we might know about each other’s trials or difficulties or potentially sins, the underlying presupposition in these prayer meetings and at this church, in this community, is that we are on each other’s side.

We’re on each other’s side because God says, first of all, you should always see yourself as committed to those who God is on the side of. And we’re to speak—when we speak to each other, we’re speaking to those who are specifically designated as God’s people and his saints.

This came home to me in a strong way at our presbytery meeting of the CRA about a month ago. As some of you know, there have been charges and accusations against various people involved with Christ Church in Moscow. Some of them quite wild and woolly. Others a little more, you know, tamer, but still nonetheless published in such a way as to bring disrepute really upon those that have slandered the church at Moscow.

And what the response of the Moscow church was is they brought a paper that Schaeffer wrote on how to hear evidence, how to—what’s biblical evidence, how should you receive a charge against a church or against an elder.

And what we ended up doing at presbytery meeting was to instruct the moderator of the CRA, who hears appeals from people in other CRA churches against CRA pastors or sessions. In other words, if some of you think that the session of RCC haven’t treated you right judicially, you can appeal a judicial decision by us to the CRA. When to do that, you’re going to have to go and talk to the moderator, okay?

And the moderator was instructed by the CRA this last month, in his hearing of charges against elders, to show biblical partiality to the elders. Now, if you, when you first hear that—wait a minute—when you hear a charge, aren’t you supposed to then like get out the striped shirt and the referee cap and the whistle and assume that give equal weight to both parties and be impartial about how you hear these things? That’s the way we normally think of it. At least I most of normally think of it that way.

Well, if we’re hearing a charge against someone, that’s—we get our neutral hat. But in the Bible, let’s not talk about others. Let’s just talk about anybody accused of a crime. Anybody accused of a crime is not under a presumption of guilt, but rather a presumption of innocence. The judge is bound by the rules of biblical trials to show partiality to the person being charged, okay?

Because in the Bible, you have to have two or three witnesses to prove a charge against somebody. The system is not neutral. You get to say what’s bad against the guy. You get to say what you’ve got to say right about yourself, and then I’ll decide. No, he’s right unless you can prove with two or three lines of evidence that he’s sinned in some way. That’s biblical trial procedure.

So in the scripture, we are commanded not to be neutral to people accused of a crime. We are commanded to be partial. We’re on the side of someone that comes brought to court for any reason. And it takes a preponderance of evidence, two or three witnesses over here to tilt the scale. The scale doesn’t start off neutral, and any little charge bumps it over to guilty. The scale starts off heavily weighted toward the person himself, the person that’s being charged. And it’s the burden to prove—the opposition—to prove that he’s guilty, you see?

That’s very important. And so when you hear things said about this or that the Auburn Avenue guys did, or this did, or that did, or if you hear things about, you know, Dennis Tuuri says this, or John S. says this, or Chris W. says this, or Deacon L. says this, you know, you don’t all of a sudden slip into neutral territory. You have, first of all, by the command of scripture, to be partial toward any person charged with a crime.

And secondly, it’s not as if you don’t know the people involved, right? You know the elders of this church. You know the deacons of this church. So you should have a biblical partiality. You should be on their side before you start hearing things that are brought against them.

Now, there’s all kinds of other things we could talk about in terms of how evidence should be brought against people, whether they’re elders or deacons or the average church member, to bring a charge, and it’s very important. But that’s not my point right now. The point I’m trying to make is to help us to see that the scriptures desire us to be in each other’s corner.

Even if hard times come and people make charges against you, we should be in each other’s corner. And you should know whenever the elders come and talk to you or if the deacons come and talk to you or if your friend comes and talks to you, we want to go out of our way to assure each other that we are in your corner. We don’t teach you neutrally. We’re on your side.

Sometimes we got to talk about sin. I’ll get to that in a couple of minutes. Part of speaking peace sometimes is to confront sin. But it’s always should be in the context that we’re on each other’s side.

To speak peace to one another, Jesus comes to a group of disciples who have treated him badly, who have sinned against him. And he doesn’t come with an accusation. He comes speaking peace. He comes on their side. Now, he’ll correct them, but he comes on their side.

And so the idea that I’m trying to get at here is the basic presupposition of our interpersonal relationships must be to treat each other the way God treats us. If we’re the voice of Christ in some way, at some times, that is going to be used by God to speak peace to one another, then we want to model our speech after God, who speaks peace to his people, to his saints.

We should see each other as God’s saints, God’s people, people that we are positively committed to. Everybody in this church should be in my corner as I go through life. And everybody in this church ought to be in Matt’s corner, no matter what he struggles with. And everybody in this church ought to be in Javy’s corner and the struggles he goes through. You understand?

That is absolutely critical to understanding what the body of Christ is all about. If we’re going to speak peace, the presupposition is we’re speaking peace. God tells us to his people, his saints, treat each other with that kind of respect and reverence and care. We are in each other’s corner.

This is a model that must begin to make itself evident most of all within the leadership councils of the church, find its way out into the culture of a particular church. We must understand that we’re in each other’s corner.

That’s the kind of the assumption that undergirds this speaking of peace. We’re to speak peace, assuming and believing and actually being upon one another’s side, who speak peace the way God speaks peace to his people, people that are considered to be his saints.

Now, see, that has some implications. That means that we have to kind of be careful how we speak.

I’ve got on your outline I came across a BH post again this last week that I wanted to mention in this regard. They were talking about churches, and should churches, if you’re going to have a parish model of a church, then a church should be multicultural in a proper way, right? Multiculturalism today is a liberal atheistic perversion of something that is true and right in its place. We should definitely be multicultural. We don’t want rich people with rich people, poor people with poor people, black people here, white people here, Latinos here, Asians here. No, we want this community, eventually, long term, the vision is that this is the parish church for this community. There’s lots of different people around here. Now, they may have some economic similarities, but you see, the church’s properly multicultural.

And what tends to happen because of the diversity of churches—and you can go to any church, and most of you, some of you drove half an hour or more to this church—the end result is we sort of start having a set of doctrines that tend to exclude people, not explicitly, but there’s ways we communicate to people we’re not on their side even if we’re not trying to do that.

So this guy came up with this list. He thought this would be a helpful series of new books for pastors. One, what it’s like to be self-employed. Two, what it’s like to live in an apartment with small children. You know, if your preaching doesn’t include the fact that some of the people are going to be hearing this are living in apartments with small children, you see, you’re not—if the underlying assumption is that we all ought to be owning our homes and they ought to be big and we ought to have, you know, that kind of peace and order in our home that a large home can bring—well, then somehow we haven’t really assured people that we’re on their side if they exist in a different kind of cultural setting than we do.

What it’s like to be on welfare. You know, yeah, we have a model where we think eventually the state shouldn’t be involved in that. But what do we, you know, when we talk about that? How sensitive are we to those people? Are we assuring people who may come to this church in their beginning stages of maturation and sanctification that God is on their side, too, even though they’re on welfare? You see, what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck. What it’s like not to have health insurance. What it’s like to wear clothes from Goodwill all the time, what it’s like to drive a piece of junk. What it’s like to have no cell phone or—we say no email.

What it’s like to be in a union. Are we sensitive to those things? What it’s like to be a Democrat. What it’s like to get—what it’s like to get only three channels. What it’s like to never be able to get your hands clean. What it’s like never to have read Narnia. What it’s like to go to medical school. What it’s like to not have a secondary education, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, see, I bring that up because just by the nature of who we are, we’re going to have to work hard at assuring each other that we’re in each other’s corner. No matter where we’re coming from, no matter what place we come into this church at, whether people are beginning their walk with Christ, beginning to learn about the implications of lordship in various areas, whatever it is, we want to make sure that those people believe that we’re on their side.

It’s part of speaking peace to one another. This assurance that we’re on each other’s side and we are to speak peace from our hearts.

We should be on each other’s side, not because pastor says so ultimately, but because we understand that we’ve been saved by grace. In Psalm 28:3, the psalmist says, “Draw me not away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors, but malice is really in their hearts.”

Not enough just to speak peace verbally. What I’m calling for is being in each other’s corner in our hearts. Really being there with someone who comes in who may be on welfare, you know, who may be a Democrat, may not understand the implications in various ways of the gospel of Christ. Do we really in our hearts embrace them as God’s people? They’re here. They’re coming to the church. They might get baptized. They’re taking communion with us. They’re part of the body of Christ. We have to work at and really truly believe in our hearts, and then make it show in our words, that we’re on their side.

This is part of speaking peace to one another.

Three, there are specific circumstances that I think it’s most important that we speak peace to people in. We should speak peace to people in distress.

What kinds of distress? Well, first of all, economic distress. Our Savior in the gospels had a lot to say about the poor—people with economic distress. And we should, in the context of our church, be sensitive to people that have economic distress. Maybe they’re poor. Maybe they’re just scraping by. The kind of work they’ve got may be—maybe they make a lot of money when they’re working, but they’re not working now. Economic loss produces fear, right?

Whether you don’t have a job, whether you’re not sure about your job, whether maybe your job isn’t bringing in enough to really do much more than just get by paycheck to paycheck, there’s fear that accompanies that. There’s real distress. Jesus came to disciples who were fearful, and he put them at peace about it. “Be at peace. I’ve overcome the world. It’s going to be all right.” All these things he said—speaking peace means salvation is coming. Heaven is being manifested. God will take you through this trial. He’s on your side. He’s going to judge any enemies you have. He’s going to take care of you. That’s speaking peace to each other.

And when we have economic distress, we get fearful that all that stuff isn’t really true. We may end up with social distress. You know, nobody’s going to starve to death. Nobody worries that they’re going to die as a result of not having a job or money, but they do fear that you’re not going to be on their side if they don’t have enough money. And they do fear that if the economics get so bad, their own family may start to disintegrate. They fear the societal impact of economic loss, and we should be sensitive to that.

And so whenever anybody is unemployed or underemployed, we should go out of our way to encourage each other in vocation, encourage each other when we’re in economic distress.

I skipped over emotional distress. Emotional distress is the basic fear that the disciples had in that room where Jesus comes to speak peace to them. And sometimes there’s emotional distress that people have that’s not really being pinned to economics or health or whatever else it is. If we know people that struggle with emotional distress, our obligation is to be the voice of God speaking peace to them, assuring them that God is indeed Father Sovereign, that he’s in control. But more than that, he’s on their side. He loves them.

And then there’s this economic distress that is accompanied, as I say in the outline, with a loss of glory—a belief in a lot. You know, even if you’re making it day by day, you have that junker car. You’re always going to drive a junker car. Will I have glory in the eyes of the people that I share in my neighborhood or that I go to church with? Will I have glory? Loss of the social dimension of life.

And so we should speak peace to one another when we have economic difficulties or concern.

Physical distress and health—small deaths. Really, these represent isolation from the social dimension of life. And I guess that one of the reasons I’m talking about this is because I had a really bad ear infection for a week. Instead of preparing for my sermon through studying the scriptures, I prepared my sermon by laying there trying to make my ear feel better so I could sleep. And I really couldn’t for several days, and it really was bad shape. And there’s an isolation that accompanies health difficulties, and I just I think it’s so important that we be sensitive to people who are struggling physically with health problems and that we go to them, call them, drop them a note, speak peace to them, you know?

I had this wonderful card sent to me by Kathy Kitsmiller’s two and three-year-old class where they all wished me health—you know, the hope that I’m getting better. And she had her class make this card up. And you, that little things like that are so important, you see? It’s a small thing, but it can minister tremendous life and peace to one another.

And we speak peace to each other to those who are in physical or health distress.

Fourth, distress of approaching death. I mean, as we get older, the actual fact of literal death is going to be with us more and more. And once more, I thought about this as I was walking up the hill this last week. You know, it’s a hard slog. You know, to use Rushdoony’s term that was kind of in trouble a couple weeks ago—coming up this hill is a hard slog. It’s a sense. The Psalms of Asense are wonderful psalms to read to those who are approaching death because they talk about the difficulty, the trials and tribulations of moving up to the hill of God.

And coming uphill here, walking up this hill is a hard slog. Well, when people move to death, that’s a hard slog. It’s the hardest journey or march they’ll probably have to make. And when they’re moving that way, we should be there speaking peace, assuring them of God’s love, assuring them of the resurrection. What did Jesus do? He went to people that were in the context of death and dying and assured them that he was the resurrection and the life.

So we should speak peace to each other as people have approaching death. It is the great isolation from community—what we all have to go through—and it has fear associated with it.

Finally, the stress of an empathetic struggle with those we love going through the above. You know, we have more and more people in our congregation who are going to experience relatives, ones that we love dearly, going through death, going through economic distress, going through health problems. And we have real empathetic struggles with them. And we have loss as we face those who we love dying, right?

And several times in the last six months or a year, people here have had parents die. And it’s important that we be sensitive to each other. You know, to speak—they can have peace on their own between them and Christ, yes. But this text tells us that Jesus appears, uses a human voice and presence, to speak peace to fearful disciples and doubting disciples.

And we should be there. You know, when people get sick at our church, when they suffer the loss of loved ones through death, this church should be known as a church that understands that as this new creation dawns in the gospel of John, it dawns with an implied obligation to each of us to speak peace to one another in these difficult circumstances.

We should be known as a church who goes out of our way to minister to each other with our words, with our presence, with cards, letters, whatever it is. Physical presence is best, though. Words are great. I hope that more and more characterizes who we are as a church—that we speak peace to one another in times of distress.

Four, we should speak peace to those who have sinned. And you know, here, clearly, one of the things that we are to do—that Jesus reminded us of in the last section of John’s gospel—was that we’re to remit sins and we’re to retain certain sins as well.

Let me read this from Matthew’s gospel. And I think this is kind of obvious: that when we speak peace to one another, it must as well and will normally include a great deal of talk about forgiveness of sins.

What does James say? If you’re sick, call for the elders. They’ll pray over you and they will speak peace to you. They’ll forgive you your sins. Your sins will be forgiven based on the prayers and the speech of the elders.

What’s going on there? Well, there’s an interesting account in Matthew chapter 9. Jesus goes to this paralytic and he heals this paralytic. In Matthew 9, we read that—let’s see, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven.” And at once the scribes said within themselves, “This man blasphemes.”

But Jesus, knowing your thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—and he said to the paralytic—”Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And he rose and departed to his house.

Now when the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God who had given such powers to men. That’s what this text says: “Who had given such powers to men.” What powers? Not the power to heal. The power to forgive sins. That was the greater of the two. The more difficult to accomplish was forgiveness of the man’s sins. That’s what they didn’t like about what he was doing. All right.

But he proves to them that he can forgive sins by his healing the man as well and causing him to get up. That’s a sign miracle to emphasize what he had just done for the man—the great gift that he does for all of us. He forgives our sins. Now they understand that. They understand it better than we do. The text does not call him the Son of God here. It calls him the Son of Man. In other words, he’s second Adam doing this. Second Adam will follow in the steps of Jesus, the Son of Man, by also forgiving sins.

And that’s why they then say, “Well, this is amazing. We glorify God who had given such power, the power to forgive sins to men in general.” Jesus ushers in the new creation. And the new creation is a time when we’re all to speak peace to one another. And part of that speaking peace is to forgive each other’s sins. Plain and simple.

That’s why in Ephesians, we sing this simple children’s rhyme, right? And it has it—is filled with a miracle, a miraculous truth of the new creation: “You’ll be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” Forgiving each other’s sins.

Do you understand the implication of that? Forgiving one another. Colossians says the same thing. James says the same thing. Galatians have implication in chapter 6 says the same thing. In the New Testament epistles, we find something we don’t really see much of in the Old Testament. We see the commandment to forgive each other’s sins. And we see Jesus in the Gospels, the Son of Man, giving this power and authority to men to forgive sins.

Do you understand? Part of speaking peace to one another is to assure each other of the forgiveness of sins. That’s the normative mode. We’re in each other’s corners. We’re supposed to be assuring each other. Our guilt builds up upon us. You know, Elder S., Elder W., Elder T. may assure you of your forgiveness in the Lord today. And you need more than that. You need your friends and your neighbors and your relatives to say, “Your sins are forgiven, Johnny. Your sins are forgiven, Susie.”

We’re to forgive each other’s sins. That’s part of speaking peace to one another. We’re in each other’s side. Now, if people don’t repent of sins eventually, then we have to say their sins are retained. There’s that side of it. But see, it’s the remission of sins that Jesus said is the general mission of the church as part of this speaking peace to each other.

Finally, we should be committed to hearing the Lord speaks to us.

David, back to Psalm 85, uh begins by saying, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak. He will speak peace.” People will speak peace to each other this afternoon in the prayer meeting. But will we hear it? Or will we just think that’s the hopeful wishes of somebody, that’s just a way of patting me on the head? They’re saying my sins are forgiven if I really believe in Jesus and all that stuff.

Or will I really hear in their words the Lord Jesus Christ saying, “Peace to you in the midst of your unemployment. Peace to you in your struggles financially. Peace to you in your health difficulties. Will your ear—you still can’t hear out of one ear—peace. It’s coming. You eventually will hear out of both ears more than you’ll ever probably want to again. Peace.”

Will we hear Jesus speaking peace to us? Will we hear Jesus himself assuring us that our sins are forgiven as we speak to one another in the context of our prayer meetings, in our families?

This all this stuff applies very directly in the context of our families. Do our children know we’re on their side? Do they hear us speaking peace to them? Do wives hear husbands speaking peace to them? Do husbands hear wives speaking peace to them? That’s what the scriptures call us to do.

And it calls us to be like David. He’ll take the comfort of the peace offered through the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ coming to him through the work of God in you. As we come to one another, we’re to speak peace to each other. It’s the essence of the new creation—the social dimension being restored. And we’re to hear Jesus speaking peace through one another as we encourage each other in the various aspects of God’s presence with us.

I got this quote at the bottom. I read this week—Booker T. Washington, I think, who died, anniversary of his death, was this last week: “We shall prosper as we learn to do the common things of life in an uncommon way.”

Common thing of life—to try to encourage each other, to talk to each other, to use our words, try to build each other up. But if we understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is using, among other means, human voice and presence to minister peace one to the other, now we’ve taken what seems like a simple thing—going over and sitting with somebody who’s suffering, who, you know, is suffering the loss of a loved one. Going over and telling someone, “I’m really sorry you’re not feeling good. I’m praying for you. You know, I’m just praying for you.” Telling somebody who’s struggling at work, “It’s all right. God’s in control. He still loves you.”

These are the common things. But when we treat them as the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ to one another, we have done these common things in an uncommon, new creation, miraculous sort of a way. And as a result of that, Booker T. Washington was right: If we do that, we shall prosper.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that your peace is upon us. Help us to minister that peace one to the other. Help us, Lord God, particularly those today in our prayer meetings, to begin this regular practice of speaking peace to one another. In Christ’s name we ask. Amen.

Amen.

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? Died he for me who caused his pain? For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me? Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me?

His mystery all the mortal dies. Who can explore his strange design? In vain the firstborn seraphim cries to sound the depths of love divine. His mercy all, let earth adore! Let angels minds inquire no more. Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me?

He left his father’s throne above so free, so infinite his grace came to mankind with the Father’s love and bled for Adam’s helpless race. His mercy all immense and free, for oh my God, it bound for me. Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night. Thy light diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dun flame with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed thee. Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me?